Evolving Immunotherapy Data Shed Light on Best Practices in Metastatic Melanoma
Source: Oncology Nursing News, November 2022
Different sequencing strategies may help improve outcomes and mitigate toxicities for patients with metastatic melanoma, according to Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD. Moreover, while the dual immunotherapy combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilumumab (Yervoy) continues to demonstrate long-term benefit for this patient population, newer regimens are also starting to show promise—potentially expanding the growing number of effective therapies in this setting.
For instance, the phase 3 CheckMate 067 trial (NCT01844505), which randomly assigned patients with previously untreated, unresectable or metastatic melanoma 1:1:1 to receive the combination of nivolumab/ipilimumab, nivolumab alone, or ipilimumab alone, now has available data from 6.5 years of follow-up. “There are not a lot of studies out there in melanoma—in fact, I would say there are none—that have this kind of follow-up,” Weber, the deputy director of the Perlmutter Cancer Center at New York University Langone Health in New York, New York, noted, duing a presentation at the 40th Annual CFS®.
The combination elicited a median overall survival [OS] of 72.1 months (95% CI, 38.2-not reached [NR]), compared with 36.9 months (95% CI, 28.2-58.7) for nivolumab alone (HR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.67-1.04) and 19.9 months (95% CI, 16.8-24.6) for ipilimumab alone (HR, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.43-0.64).2 The 78-month OS rates were 49% for nivolumab/ipilimumab, 42% for nivolumab alone, and 23% for ipilimumab alone.